Saturday, March 11, 2017

The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous

... AA truisms have so infiltrated our culture that many people believe
heavy drinkers cannot recover before they “hit bottom.” Researchers I’ve
talked with say that’s akin to offering antidepressants only to those
who have attempted suicide, or prescribing insulin only after a patient
has lapsed into a diabetic coma. “You might as well tell a guy who
weighs 250 pounds and has untreated hypertension and cholesterol of 300,
‘Don’t exercise, keep eating fast food, and we’ll give you a triple
bypass when you have a heart attack,’ ” Mark Willenbring, a psychiatrist
in St. Paul and a former director of treatment and recovery research at
the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told me. He
threw up his hands. “Absurd.”